This pretty much nails the cause of the situation, and blows expedition leader Chris Turney’s claim about being “surprised” about the situation literally out of the water.
In my post Now that the ‘Ship of Fools’ is safe in Antarctica, tough questions need to be asked one of the questions I asked was:
9. Did the sightseeing excursion to Mawson’s Huts on December 19th and again on Dec 23rd (apparently to Mertz Glacier, though their blog and “tracker” are unclear on this point) cause delays that caused the ship to be trapped in rapidly changing weather which closed the sea ice around them?
In the Spirit of Mawson Blog, we have this entry:
Posted by Graeme Clark, December 24, 2013
It’s often said that Antarctica is a dynamic environment that can rapidly transform at a moments notice. Today we experienced that first-hand, as we came down from a high of exceptionally good weather to find ourselves surrounded by thick, impassable pack ice. Too dense to travel through, the sea-ice has stopped the mighty Shokalskiy in its tracks despite aggressive charges by Captain Igor. The ship is now resigned to wait for a change in wind conditions to loosen or dissipate the sea ice before we can escape to open water. These are the challenging conditions for which Antarctica is so well known.
The real answer to that event lies in the blog of the Australian green politician on-board, Janet Rice. WUWT commenter Aphan gave us the scoop from her log on how the stage was set for getting stuck, because the passengers weren’t heeding the captain’s warning quickly enough. Clearly the captain knew what was coming, but the passengers were just too slow. He couldn’t abandon them, so he had to wait, and this delay put the ship in jeopardy.
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Aphan says:
January 1, 2014 at 5:13 pm
My apologies if someone above has mentioned this. It’s getting to be a chore to scroll through all the activity here! (grins)
From Janet Rice- http://www.janetrice.com.au/?e=98
*******************************************************
(After 1 am on December 24)
“The ship is making very slow progress through pack ice. There is a narrow channel that we are inching our way along – it of course is pretty frozen in itself. There are icebergs on either side of us, some kilometres away – hard to tell exactly how far. We oscillate between hardly moving to suddenly being jolted sideways with a crunch as the ship bashes and barges its way through.”
***
“We were out in similar conditions this afternoon. Somewhat brighter – in fact there was blue sky and sunshine for some periods. The weather has been better than the forecast blizzard, so that was good.”
***
The first drama of the day was the sinking – or almost! – of one of the Argos. The Argos are designed to be amphibious – just. They were launched today off the ship – and two of the three made it safely being towed by a zodiac the 50 metres or so to shore. The third was towed too fast it seems – and water came over the bonnet / bow, flooding both the engine and the vehicle itself. Ben tried in vain to bail out with a spade and luckily they made it to shore before the vehicle sunk entirely. Ben ended up rather wet too, but similarly to Mary, not submerged enough for the lifejacket to come into play. Sadly Argo engines don’t take too kindly to being submerged… the ships engineers are still working on it and not very optimistic about its prospects.
“The third drama of the day is the one which is still unfolding. Because of the Argo mishap we got off late, and had one less vehicle to ferry people to and fro. I’m told the Captain was becoming rather definite late in the afternoon that we needed to get everyone back on board ASAP because of the coming weather and the ice closing in. As I write we are continuing to make extremely slow progress through what looks like a winter alpine snow field – it’s yet another surreal part of this journey that we are in a ship trying to barge our way through here! I’m sure the Captain would have been much happier if we had got away a few hours earlier. Maybe we would have made it through the worst before it consolidated as much as it has with the very cold south- easterly winds blowing the ice away from the coast, around and behind us as well as ahead.
We’ll see where we are in the morning – it may be a very white Christmas Eve!
PS. 9.30am 24/12. We have moved less than a kilometre over night, and are now stationary in a sea of ice. The word is that we are not stuck, merely waiting for a weather change. It seems to me that we are having the quintessential Antarctic experience. J Stay tuned.”
*******************************************************
THE CAPTAIN and PASSENGERS knew that bad weather and ice were coming on Dec 23-that a “blizzard had been forecast”. The Captain made it clear to them more than once, because he “became rather definite” later that they needed to get OUT of that area ASAP.
As of 1 am on December 24th, they were already progressing through “ice pack” that caused the ship to “bash and barge” it’s way through the ice! Need more evidence of how stupid these people are?
On the 21st, Turney blogged about their trip to the Mawson camp on the 19/20th. Trying to find the LEAST hazardous way to access the Commonwealth Bay area, they decided to move the ship up the coast-farther away, but with access to better ice to drive across. He says this-
“A timely reminder was during the evening we relocated. The Shokalskiy suddenly found it was in a mass breakout of ice. In just half an hour, an extensive area of ice (some of which we had been using for the Hangout on Air earlier that day) had broken up and was moving away from Commonwealth Bay with haste. Large pieces of ice, in the shape of shattered glass fragments – albeit large pieces – surrounded our vessel. There was no danger to the ship but it was a timely reminder how quickly things can change in this environment. You can never take anything for granted in the Antarctic!”
After experiencing the ship being surrounded by breakout ice on the 18th or 18th of December in just HALF AN HOUR, they stayed in that area, moved slightly up the coast and with an incoming blizzard and MORE ice on the way, they went onshore and forced the boat to wait for their return. THEN they got stuck.
For Chris Turney to then go on TELEVISION and act shocked that all this ice just mysteriously appeared and hemmed them in without any warning, is stunning. If the Captain gets sued for damages, I hope he takes every penny Chris Turney and the University of New South Wales will ever have in the future.
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[ Anthony: I’ve saved the Rice log entry as a PDF here: Rice-log-Monday-23-December-2013 ]
==============================================================
UPDATE: A chronological summary by Aphan
*Didn’t mean for this to be so long. Just think the info here is important to the truth.*
Just got back from screen capping and copying URLs (instead of just cutting and pasting out key points) from http://www.spiritofmawson.com/blog/. We just never know these days when website pages will disappear. Right?
Not only does it detail all the sea ice they had to “grind through” (interactive map of the trips progress –https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z8QYRx-LCqEw.kFHpO8ktLaqI) in order to get anywhere CLOSE to the continent in the first place, but in the days BEFORE they got stuck in the ice for good, REPEATED posts on the blog by passengers demonstrate that the ice-fast ice-shore ice-was breaking up over and over again!!
Again, for Chris Turney to PRETEND after the ship got fatally stuck, to be shocked or surprised about all this ice suddenly showing up where it had not been before is ludicrous! It was there when they sailed in, it was breaking up and moving the whole time they were there, and Chris Turney admits on Dec 19th that he knew they were “between two low pressure system circulating the continent, promising fine, stable weather for at least the following two days. Unfortunately this is something of a double edged sword. We have been having extraordinary warm weather; so much so the fast ice – purportedly meaning the sea ice is locked ‘fast’ to the land – can spectacularly break out along the edge at any time.”
Not only that, but the ship ITSELF was breaking up fast ice on on shore!
*Dec 17th-Sean Borkovic-
“We reached a point when the ship veered suddenly to port aiming directly at the ice sheet. Just like that we ploughed into the fast ice in an effort to ‘park’ the ship so we could disembark. As we were rattled and shook by the manoeuvre it seemed crazy and bizarre yet it was not enough. We did not penetrate too far and instead of wedging in tight it instead cracked off several floes of ice. It took 12 goes before we had a suitable ‘berth’. ”
*Dec 18th- Robbie Turney-
“Later in the afternoon we took the Argos along the fast ice. We got half way before we realised it was too late and that we should head back. Although when we got back there was a large crack in the ice, 3 metres wide. It was too big for the Argos and Quad Bikes so we had to wait until the ship could barge its way to us. We were there for about an hour waiting in the five degree heat. Luckily there was no wind chill.”
*Dec 18th- Steve Lambert-
“Early evening as everyone on the ice was heading back to the ship, the cracks in the ice widened, separating them from the ship. Our obliging captain, Igor, manoeuvered the ship to a new spot, so that they could safely board.
Christmas Trees, decorations and lights are now up in the bar and dining room, We are festive. The Aussies have loved reminding our Pommie friends on board of that we have reclaimed the Ashes.
…9pm. Just at the end of dinner – the ice sheet that we were on all day has had a massive fracture and disintegrated into numerous sheets with large areas of water in between! Good thing that we are all on board, as well as all of the scientific equipment and vehicles.”
*Dec 19th-Ian McRae-
“The fast ice, the frozen ocean attached to the distant land, is rapidly breaking up and as we walk, cracks appear and occasionally we sink down to our knees to the ice below or, sometimes, to water. The surface we were walking on yesterday is now floating out to sea as pack ice and there is a danger that we could float out with it.”
Turney wraps up the 19th-20th on his entry on Dec 21st- (Note he acknowledges that he knew on or around Dec 19th that they are between low pressure systems and that stable weather might only last a couple of days)
“The weather forecast was excellent. We were between two low pressure system circulating the continent, promising fine, stable weather for at least the following two days. Unfortunately this is something of a double edged sword. We have been having extraordinary warm weather; so much so the fast ice – purportedly meaning the sea ice is locked ‘fast’ to the land – can spectacularly break out along the edge at any time. A timely reminder was during the evening we relocated. The Shokalskiy suddenly found it was in a mass breakout of ice. In just half an hour, an extensive area of ice (some of which we had been using for the Hangout on Air earlier that day) had broken up and was moving away from Commonwealth Bay with haste. Large pieces of ice, in the shape of shattered glass fragments – albeit large pieces – surrounded our vessel. There was no danger to the ship but it was a timely reminder how quickly things can change in this environment. You can never take anything for granted in the Antarctic! ”
By the 23rd, according to the Janet Rice site-they were surrounded by ice –http://www.janetrice.com.au/?e=98
“The ship is making very slow progress through pack ice. There is a narrow channel that we are inching our way along – it of course is pretty frozen in itself. There are icebergs on either side of us, some kilometres away – hard to tell exactly how far. We oscillate between hardly moving to suddenly being jolted sideways with a crunch as the ship bashes and barges its way through.”
@ur momisugly OLD DATA, 2:52 am,
Washington Times, not Washington Post. Should also be the Washington Post but it’s not.
@Scute at 6:43 am
Was this the Guardian Video you mentioned? It is about 2/3 down in the current blog at “1.07pm GMT”
And this video shows the ship’s approach to Antarctica, when it was happily cutting through the ice “like a hot knife through butter”. with a date of Dec. 14 at some of it and a time lapse of the ship moving through the pack ice.
They had the audacity, the chutzpah to call this foolhardy stunt “The spirit of Mawson”? Mawson must be turning over in his grave.
Bruce Cobb says:
January 3, 2014 at 8:41 am
They had the audacity, the chutzpah to call this foolhardy stunt “The spirit of Mawson”? Mawson must be turning over in his grave.
******************************
Agreed Bruce. They have disgraced and brought shame on the name of Mawson. “The Spirit of Mawson” complains about narrow bunks and no peanut butter & banana milkshakes. I am quite disgusted.
Turney explains that Australia is responsible for rescue costs here: http://youtu.be/At0d_rcYljk (as a result of giving formal permission for the trip).
…All these videos are in danger of being wiped by the Guardian when they realise their significance to any enquiry and especially if they read this article on WUWT….
WHEN they read this…..
This reminded me of the several ships traversing the NorthWest Passage in 2013 that got trapped by an early closure. Most are wintering in
http://northwestpassage2013.blogspot.com/2013/08/canadian-arctic-blocked-with-sea-ice-at.html
Sept. 8: Counting down the days – Which yachts are fighting to escape an Arctic winter? Who will win? Who will lose?
http://northwestpassage2013.blogspot.com/2013/09/counting-down-days-which-yachts-are.html
Sept 15: It ain’t over till the fat lady sings – MAKE PLANS TO WINTER OVER IF STILL IN THE ARCTIC TODAY – THE FAT LADY IS SINGING
http://northwestpassage2013.blogspot.com/2013/09/it-aint-over-till-fat-lady-sings-make.html
I wonder how many lives and how much national wealth these over-smart fools have put at risk by needing to be rescued.
It does seem important to share this link with you. H/T to freetheCO2 on the Spectator…
Chris Turney discovers he is stuck in Antarctic ice…
Last weather report:
It’s so cold, that the climate fraudsters finally have their hands in their own pockets!
The minimum for Antarctica averages around February 22nd. Looking at the powder snow on the pack ice plus the record ice extent this year, suggests to me that this minimum date is going to be brought forward this year. They may only have 4- 5weeks before refreeze this year. Certainly, the “melt” slows down for several weeks before the minimum and these ships may be looking pretty much at the best conditions they are going to get.
@ur momisugly Stephen Rasey at 8:38 am
I think it’s the one. Just to be sure,
it’s where he says “and loads and loads of this gorgeous white pack ice” 100 miles from the coast.
@ur momisugly 2:45 it says they’re at 65 deg south (still 100 miles from the coast) and film 4-5 metre thick pack ice from the Zodiac dinghy.
@ur momisugly 3:30 it shows their walking-pace progress through such ice at 80% to 90% coverage which makes that last 100 miles a 3-day journey.
Just to corroborate the video narrative, Turney makes a blog entry on the same day:
Breaking ice – Sat 14th Dec
Posted by Robbie Turney,
Today I woke up to the ice. I was dreaming peacefully when a loud crack rang out and jolted me awake. I quickly went to the porthole and tore open the blinds to discover pack ice all around us.
The truth of the matter is that when Turney said they were “only two miles from open water”, he knew they weren’t two miles from open ocean. He was careful to choose his words- the “open water” was the ice-clear area of the polynya which he and others regularly referred to. Behind that, to the north, was the hundred miles of very closely spaced and thick pack ice documented above. And to the east there was 400 square km of pure 100% pack ice as documented by the satellite image in Turney’s 30th December blog entry (depicted in the 20th December image, to the west of the Mertz glacier). One or both of these sources of ice closed up the polynya (depicted as blue and yellow/green) and trapped the Shokalskiy.
Alok Jha obviously didn’t realise that in order to cut through 4 metre ice “like a knife through butter” these giant slabs can’t be locked together in one mass- and to be locked together in one mass needed just one blizzard from the right direction. He found that out on the 24th.
Turney’s 30th December 2013 blog entry is here (shows different date due to keeping at the top as a sticky):
http://www.spiritofmawson.com/one-week-on/
In this post, Turney blames pack ice to the east and south of the former Mertz glacier area and in an interview elsewhere attributes this area of new pack ice drifting west to Global Warming due to the missing glacier not protecting Commonwealth bay from easterly winds pushing such ice into the bay. This section of pack ice probably did move west as well and shunt up against the bigger chunk to the west. But it was incidental to the initial trapping of the ship.
For the entire duration of their stay in theCommonwealth Bay area they were in the polynya, 100 miles from open ocean and one blizzard away from a 1000 square km pack ice lock-down.
While much attention is rightly being paid to this farce in the Antarctic we should spare a moment to look over the the Arctic again. There, despite the much smaller than expected melt last summer the refreeze this winter is now at the lowest recently recorded, so next summer could be a substantial melt.
The winds and tides that have given the US and Canada a fiercely cold winter, have ironically made for milder conditions in much of the Arctic
What! Christmas Turkey has been shown to be lying!!! never!! they do such things? do they?
large measure’s of Sarcasm where produced in the typing of this Comment!!
(thanks to OLD DATA at 2:52am today)
AGW is dead. Always (unlike the parrot) has been. Always will be.
“… not dead, it’s {just pausin’}.” Con artists are a l1e (and a laugh) a minute. (and some of them would prefer to be cutting trees for a living and will, if you press them, tell you so…)
LOL.
@Janice. Thank you for your kind words. No offense taken. I am posting from my Phone d’i this time. Apologies to mods if this goes wrong. And please do delete the first copy of poem. I must think of a title.
I know. “The Vacation of Chris Turney”
Patrick linked to the article about Mortimer being “more sober”. Here’s a takeaway quote from that link-
“Mortimer said it was amazing to fly across the extensive sea ice pack that had formed around their ship since they became stuck on Christmas Day, five nautical miles (nine kilometres) from the ice edge.
On Thursday the ship was 22 nautical miles (40 kilometres) from the ice edge.
“All that ice has blown in, in the past week. And it’s big, multi-year ice under enormous pressure,” he said.
“A catastrophic event has taken place in the last week, and we were party to that,” he said.
Aurora captain Murray Doyle said the ice conditions around the Mertz Glacier were typical of the past few years.
“Since the Mertz Glacier was punched out by the B9 [iceberg] some years ago, it has changed the whole dynamics of the area,” he said.
Significant sized floes were now building up year after year, he said.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/antarctic-expedition-leader-relieved-but-sad-to-leave-russian-ship-20140103-308wx.html#ixzz2pNClvzZi
*******
#1-Mortimer SHOULD be sad…and very sick to his stomach. HIS COMPANY chartered the SHIP!!!
#2-Mortimer says “Catastrophic event “…Aurora’s Captain Doyle says “typical ice conditions”.
No matter what these people say, the people who work the area (rather than just rent party ships to visit it to get their name attached to Mawsons) KNOW this is not abnormal, not catastrophic, not a freak incident. The ONLY ONES who were surprised here are the SCIENTISTS.
PS Thanks Janice (I love your posts too!) and Chris. I’ve always loved a good mystery. Its fabulous to see WUWT leading the way on the real facts about this trip.
“Ship of Fools”. I’ve read it and used it as a figure of speech.
A “figure of speech” is not literal but is used to communicate the “literal” more truly than a simple statement of the literal. (i.e. “The ground is dry.” vs “The ground is thirsty.”)
Now I’m not sure in which category “Ship of Fools” belongs.
(Captain and crew excluded.)
“Gunga Din says:
January 3, 2014 at 2:26 pm
“Ship of Fools”. I’ve read it and used it as a figure of speech.
A “figure of speech” is not literal but is used to communicate the “literal” more truly than a simple statement of the literal. (i.e. “The ground is dry.” vs “The ground is thirsty.”)
Now I’m not sure in which category “Ship of Fools” belongs.
(Captain and crew excluded.)”
How about “Cargo of Tools” , since they were passengers and CAGW syncophants?
And there ain’t even rum in that “port ‘o call!” What a bunch of lightweights.
@ur momisugly Aphan — thanks! That’s really nice to know. Thanks for taking the time to say so.
@ur momisugly Mrs. Beardsley — whew. Thanks. Yes, that’s a good title. How about this little tweak to make the meter match the original: “The Vacation of Chris Ter Nee¹” (¹ phonetic spelling of Turney)? And, of course, a scrivener’s “error” or two turning it into Ter Kee, heh, heh.
John says:
January 3, 2014 at 11:30 am
While much attention is rightly being paid to this farce in the Antarctic we should spare a moment to look over the the Arctic again. There, despite the much smaller than expected melt last summer the refreeze this winter is now at the lowest recently recorded, so next summer could be a substantial melt.
John, the refreezing is about the same as last year, so potentially we can expect a similar “substantial” melt as 2013 was, or even less with more multi-year ice existing now – much to the chagrin of the warmista.
Frankly I do not see anything spectacular or remarkable in it, but that’s just my 2 cent.
I understand the ocean as driving the climate, and with more open waters in winter in the north, the ocean must be cooling. Only with already cold ocean we would see more ice building up, but fortunately we are not there yet.
I think that what the last years showed is that there is no “death spiral” in the arctic.
Hi Anthony
In response to your question:
Did the sightseeing excursion …cause delays that caused the ship to be trapped in rapidly changing weather which closed the sea ice around them?
I understand directly from the ship that the tourism activities on the 23rd meant that a significant number of passengers were actually out of radio contact range, causing an eight hour delay from when the Captain insisted on departing until they were ready to do so. During this time the four miles of ice moved in around the ship.
This is going to come out over the next days or weeks, which will show that Prof. Turney has been lying by omission by simply blaming the sudden change in weather. He should have copped it on the chin and admitted to the stuff up straight away. His actions are turning this from a stuff up into deception – from a slap on the wrist to a pink slip.
Remember, in that period, we know that one tourist fell into a dangerous tidal crack. It now appears she may have been out of radio range when that happened. If it was a geography school excursion, the teacher would need to give a full incident report. Pretending it didn’t happen makes this more serious.
The Commonwealth’s insurers will be asking all these questions of the UNSW’s insurers pretty soon. It’s probably time for UNSW’s lawyers to tell Prof. Turney to either tell the whole truth or pull his head in.